I worked in cotton production back in the “bad old days” of weekly insecticide applications. So Grushkin’s statement that “cotton farming typically uses intensive pesticides” stood out to me as stunningly out-of-date in an otherwise fascinating piece. American cotton farmers still use insecticides but nothing like in the early 1990s. Now, they spend money on the latest insect-resistant GMO seed.
Ben Barstow, Palouse, Wash.
Editors’ note: According to the USDA, the combined use of insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, and other pesticides on cotton fields has, in fact, remained constant since the late 1980s. Although it is true that genetically engineered cotton now enables farmers to use less insecticide, it has led to the increased application of the herbicide glyphosate.
I was particularly intrigued by the possibility of clothes that adapt to…
